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rocca
Start.ca
Premium Member
join:2008-11-16
London, ON

rocca to londoner1

Premium Member

to londoner1

Re: CRTC Decision

said by londoner1:

Now this will no doubt anger some....however could Start or any provider for that matter simply cancel the service for those few gluttonous users?

Some ISP's do have 'fair use' clauses that enable termination if the usage is x times the average, but personally I'd prefer being upfront with it. If we say 'unlimited' then it has to be that IMHO, now it could say something like 'unlimited, no overage charges and full speed until you hit x GB and then y speed', but again being upfront about it. Just telling people after the fact that they've used more than some number I had in my head and therefore I'm cancelling their service isn't too cool with me.
madchikun
join:2004-07-18
Canada

madchikun

Member

said by rocca:

Some ISP's do have 'fair use' clauses that enable termination if the usage is x times the average, but personally I'd prefer being upfront with it. If we say 'unlimited' then it has to be that IMHO, now it could say something like 'unlimited, no overage charges and full speed until you hit x GB and then y speed', but again being upfront about it. Just telling people after the fact that they've used more than some number I had in my head and therefore I'm cancelling their service isn't too cool with me.

And that is why we appreciate Start so much! I know I've experienced the kind of surprise that you've mentioned with other service providers and it is not a pleasant feeling.

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

1 edit

Davesnothere to rocca

Premium Member

to rocca
said by rocca:

said by londoner1:

Now this will no doubt anger some....however could Start or any provider for that matter simply cancel the service for those few gluttonous users?

Some ISP's do have 'fair use' clauses that enable termination if the usage is x times the average, but personally I'd prefer being upfront with it. If we say 'unlimited' then it has to be that IMHO, now it could say something like 'unlimited, no overage charges and full speed until you hit x GB and then y speed', but again being upfront about it. Just telling people after the fact that they've used more than some number I had in my head and therefore I'm cancelling their service isn't too cool with me.

 
Some observations :

(1) Mister Rocca, your fifthrightness about things is appreciated.

(2) A few 'select' users who are friends and relatives of Angelo could still screw an IISP's bandwidth capacity demand during peak periods while taking MUCH less than 'x' GB of usage to do it.

DrugTito
join:2013-01-17
canada

DrugTito

Member

a few? funny.

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

Davesnothere

Premium Member

 
[takes a bow]

silvercat
join:2007-11-07

silvercat to rocca

Member

to rocca
said by rocca:

...
If we say 'unlimited' then it has to be that IMHO, now it could say something like 'unlimited, no overage charges and full speed until you hit x GB and then y speed', but again being upfront about it.
...

You know what, i'm okay with this. What i mean is, it would be nice having an "unlimited" package, where a user could download all they want off-peak -- and then have a set amount of GB on-peak (0 GB / 100 GB / 150 GB or 200 GB), and if they approach or start to go over that limit, then throttle the download speed during on-peak. At least that's one solution. Or give them the choice of having their speed throttled, or paying $0.40 - $0.50 / GB for extra usage during on-peak.
silvercat

silvercat

Member

Even a better suggestion (if a "Downloader's DSL Reports Special" package is going to be created) is to have a "Prime Time" fund. You pay into this account (any time you want). Funds in that account go towards paying for any extra usage during on-peak hours.

For example, if there is an unlimited package, with on-peak starting at 0 GB, cost for any Prime-Time usage would be taken from this "Prime-Time" fund, which a user can top off at any time. For a package with Prime-Time usage starting at 100 GB, cost for any extra usage for that month would be taken from the Prime-Time fund, with funds in this special account carrying over to the next month, and so on. If the balance of the Prime-Time fund reaches $0, and the user fails to top it off, throttling the download speed during on-peak could be a possibility, until such user adds more funds.

jasmo34
join:2008-03-20
~ London ~

jasmo34 to rocca

Member

to rocca
Hmmm... Some of these suggestions are starting to sound like the plans when UBB was introduced. Even TSI was going to 'severely' throttle you when you reached your cap, at least on some plans; I remember that because people were worried their VOIP would not even work at 64K, and many asked TSI to make it 128K!

Rocca...

What aspects of a user's connection can you 'control' and 'dynamically adjust' on a per-user basis, at your end?

-Can you control (reduce) the connection speed at any time of your choosing?
-Can you adjust the connection speed automatically, based on time-of-day, and a person's account settings/status?
-Can those adjustments be done 'mid-session'? (without the user logging out and back in)

Assuming your systems and equipment can do these things, is there a performance overhead in doing them dynamically? Would that affect only that line, or would it impact a larger group?

Of course, your metering/logging/accounting systems must also handle all these options. How SMART are your METERS?

To me, a lot of this 'seems' more feasible for DSL, because of the logins. I have no idea if any of this is possible on cable.
mario9999998
join:2000-08-25
Canada

mario9999998

Member

This is essentially like Rogers' Speed Boost (with line speeds boosted up to the max rated line speed, but not boosted to mitigate congested periods).

ReGenesis
@bell.ca

ReGenesis to jasmo34

Anon

to jasmo34
As the point of this conversation is to develop different packages designed to take variable internet connectivity into a fixed maximum (the connections to Cogeco), I would also like to know how this happens.

For example, in Cogeco land around my house you have basic, standard, advanced and pro packages. If you hit the maximum throughput with your connections to cogeco, what happens?

Do all requests get prioritized equally and everyone slows down? Or do pro packages (because they pay more) get higher quality of service then an basic package? Or Vice Versa as to not slow down the masses for a few guys with 60Mbps connections that are saturating the network?

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

Davesnothere to silvercat

Premium Member

to silvercat
said by silvercat:

....it would be nice having an "unlimited" package, where a user could download all they want off-peak -- and then have a set amount of GB on-peak (0 GB / 100 GB / 150 GB or 200 GB), and if they approach or start to go over that limit, then throttle the download speed during on-peak. At least that's one solution. Or give them the choice of having their speed throttled, or paying $0.40 - $0.50 / GB for extra usage during on-peak.

 
Those ideas might work, and so might some of your following posts's variations.

Of course the questions which Jasmo next raised would need to be answered first, to see what would be technologically possible of all this, regarding account management.

Gotta wait for 'Da Boss' to weigh in again....

rocca
Start.ca
Premium Member
join:2008-11-16
London, ON

rocca to jasmo34

Premium Member

to jasmo34
Almost everything is possible, some of the scenarios pitched require very specialized equipment, some of the scenarios can be done with existing routers and edge devices. With Rogers currently per-user anything is painful, but that will change in about a month. With Cogeco it's easier, but individual speed buckets are pretty tricky and generally you create policing classes for groups of users. Ie, we could create an 'unlimited user' class that shared x amount of bandwidth for everyone in it, but to limit a subset of users to specific individual speeds is a lot more difficult on cable (and very easy on dsl).
rocca

rocca to ReGenesis

Premium Member

to ReGenesis
We try to avoid saturation, if it does happen then everyone has fair share at the pipes, however statistically speaking the people with faster speeds will still get more bits through than people with slower speeds.